Top: JCGNH President Dr. Hanan Hameen Diagne. Bottom: DJ Tony Tone a.k.a. Tony Crush. Lucy Gellman Photos.
In a little black box theater on Audubon Street, DJ Tony Crush was taking it back to 1972.
From one side of the room, the Soul Searchers’ “We The People” floated over rows of chairs, their occupants already standing. On the other, lifelong New Havener Linda Lampart listened closely, moving her head to the beat. In the center of the action, Dr. Hanan Hameen Diagne leaned to one side, and popped her shoulder towards the sound. Around her, clapping filled the room. It was becoming impossible not to dance.
A focus on hip hop, history, and heritage came to Neighborhood Music School on Thursday, as the seventh annual New Haven Hip-Hop Conference dug deep on the music, dance and cultural exchange that became a social movement five decades ago. An initiative of the Official Juneteenth Coalition of Greater New Haven (JCGNH) and the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, the event focused on the necessity of Black stories and Black storytellers, particularly in and across the arts. It dovetailed with the coalition’s broader theme, which this year is “Together In Truth.”
“It’s about the community, it’s about having a space here for everyone,” said JCGNH President Dr. Hanan Hameen Diagne, as attendees gathered outside for a live graffiti demonstration from DJ Dooley-O Jackson. “We’re here to celebrate our freedom, to celebrate the freedoms that we do have, to celebrate being together, and to provide the space to build community.”
Juneteenth recognizes the emancipation of enslaved Black people in Galveston, Tex. on June 19, 1865, a full two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The date marked the formal end of chattel slavery in the United States. It did not mark the end of the economic enslavement and disenfranchisement of Black Americans, which continues today.
Haley Vincent-Simpson and her daughters.
The coalition’s activities continue Friday through Sunday on the New Haven Green, with a Friday evening “Juneteenth Jamboree,” Saturday village and marketplace, and closing concert with the violin duo Sons of Mystro on Sunday night. Earlier this month, they began with a flag raising ceremony and Juneteenth restaurant week that began June 15.
“We’re providing the space to document our history correctly,” said Hameen Diagne. “And teach people how they can do it, so we can get more of our stories shared by us, straight from the mouth of those who experienced it.”
And from the beginning of the day to a keynote from hip-hop pioneers M-1 & Umi of Dead Prez, presenters and participants alike captured history in bright, vibrant and often danceable detail. Even as attendees trickled into the school, which stands between an old foundry and arts workshop on Audubon Street, history seemed to work its way into every room, from the heavy double doors to a woodchip-covered, tented area outside that was ready for graffiti.
In the black box, author and historian Jill Marie Snyder prepared a presentation on her latest research, which explores a largely-hidden history of slavery in nineteenth-century New Haven. Crush, of the iconic Cold Crush Brothers, set up a station with old-school turntables and shiny records, the vinyl discs still matte black and mysterious in their sleeves. He futzed with a mic, taking in the intimate audience as he thought about what he was going to say.
Down the hall and up a set of stairs, AfroCrowd’s Sherry-Ann L. Antoine propped up a computer for Wikipedia editing, in the hope that attendees might stop by, set up usernames, and start adding Black histories to the public domain. She first brought that work to New Haven earlier this year, in a Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon from the coalition at the Stetson Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library.
AfroCrowd’s Sherry-Ann L. Antoine and Jesse Hameen.
Thursday, she was excited to see what new stories and interests attendees brought with them. She stressed the importance of sources like community newspapers and the Black press, which often share credible information that doesn’t exist elsewhere.
“This is a historical occasion in the community,” she said later in the day, as she worked with jazz drummer and educator Jessie Hameen to reset a password. She encouraged attendees to document the celebration itself, as well as the surrounding neighborhood. “You’ve got all these different things happening in the community, and what we’d like for people to do is these deep dives,” including additions of information rich with citations.
Outside, that vision came to life as Dooley-O pulled out a massive sheet of posterboard, and introduced himself to a dozen or so participants. As he lifted a can of lime green spray paint, he wound the clock back to New Haven in the 1980s, when the old Lee High School was “a playground” for young graffiti writers like himself, who were still just learning the tricks of the trade.
He shook it, stepping back, and outlined the letters J-U-N-E. Back at the old Lee High School, a former version of himself was taking in graffiti writing for one of the first times, still wide-eyed with wonder. He later brought that same awe to locations around the city, from Henry Street to Coogan Pavillion to Collective Consciousness Theatre.
Back in the present, attendees held on to every word. On a bench to his left, two kids leaned in closer to watch every move. He motioned to the artwork, cocked his head to one side, and then extended his hand and prepared to spray once more.
“I knew that one day, the people who didn’t like graffiti was gonna be out,” he said as the letters seemed to pop out from the white posterboard. He paused to unscrew the cap and put another in its place, explaining that it would give off a finer, smoother spray. “All of this wouldn’t have happened if hip hop wasn’t around.”
For years, he was part of that transformation. When hip hop was born in 1973, Jackson was just a small kid, more interested in the rites and rituals of childhood than the artistic practices that would soon come into his life. But around him, hip hop was evolving from a rec room in the South Bronx to a genre that was both its own, and belonged to so much of music history.
By the 1980s, that style had become linked with not just dance and music, but also with modern art and the guerrilla, iterative nature of graffiti. After seeing it in New York in the late 1970s, Jackson started trying it out himself (“I used those for, you know, creepin’ around at night type of things,” he said of the cap). With a smile, he remembered how eager colleagues were to practice on train platforms and subway cars. Back in New Haven, it was the beginning of something.
By 1989, he loved it so much that he had turned it into a show called GTV—Graffiti TV—on Public Access Television. “When you’re looking at graffiti, you’re looking at no limitations,” he said. Back in the present, he stepped back to assess what the design needed next.
“Let’s get this red poppin!” he said.
As they watched, lifelong New Haveners Linda Lampart and her daughter, Kristina Lawrence, reflected on what Juneteenth means to them. Thursday, they’d come out to the conference after meeting Hameen Diagne at another event, and hitting it off with her. Together, the two run Spa At Home, a mobile massage station that promotes healing and self-care.
That mission felt especially resonant Thursday, both said. Over a decade ago, Lawrence decided to pursue massage after using it to help her grandfather cope with the pain of emphysema. “He had me do his hands and his feet, and he was like, ‘It feels good, it feels good, Papa feels better,” she remembered with a smile. After finishing high school, she went right into massage therapy.
Now, it has allowed her to become a Black small business owner and a proud second-generation New Havener, with a young daughter of her own. When she thinks of Juneteenth in New Haven, she said, it feels singular—even in a city full of summer fairs and festivals.
“Juneteenth stands out,” she said. “The Black culture being expressed on this day feels different.“
Kristina Lawrence and her mom, Linda Lampart. The two are lifelong New Haveners, with a third generation in Lawrence's young daughter.
Back inside, DJ Tony Crush (a.k.a. DJ Tony Tone) lifted the mic to his mouth, drew attendees in close, and began to give a crash course in the art of deejaying. Before so much as lifting an album from its sleeve, he toggled between the 1970s and the present, remembering the approach that made hip hop what it is.
“DJ Kool Herc didn’t say, ‘That’s a Black Person’ or ‘That’s a white person.’ He played to the music that he liked,” Crush said. “It was just people living their lives and vibing with the sound that was there.”
He motioned for people to come in closer to hear that history in real time, slipping an album onto one of the turntables. Brief, crackly static gave way to Carole King’s 1973 “Corazón,” which begins with the rhythmic, funk-kissed percussion. As a beat dropped, he began to speak, one hand gliding through the air as the other gripped the mic.
“Do we know what she’s saying? No, because we don’t know the language. But—” piano and vocals declared themselves clearly— “The flow, the vibe, the music speaks to us if we allow it to.”
A dance tutorial that got people out of their seats in the afternoon.
He paused for a moment, his hand bobbing as King sang Yo te quiero, mi corazón. He leaned back and took a breath. Guitar came in, and the song sped up. In one universe, it was 1973 all over again, and hip hop was still in its infancy. In another, it was 2025, and three generations were gathered in a room on Audubon Street, listening to it with new ears.
“There ain’t no break there,” he said, later explaining that the fundamental elements of hip hop didn’t all materialize overnight. “We dancing to it. There ain’t no break there.”
Minutes later, he placed a record on the second turntable, and kept talking as sound filled the room. As hip hop evolved, he explained, so too did resistance to hip hop—because it was a source of Black joy and explosive Black creativity. When he teaches the history, he focuses on the fundamental elements that made it so powerful, from the emcee to an understanding of oneself.
Years later, he sees that same push and pull happening in real time, particularly as the current administration erases Black voices from the historical record. It’s one of the reasons that he ultimately gave an old turntable to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, where it lives alongside thousands of objects that tell the layered, resilient, sometimes painful story of the Black diaspora.
“You gotta let them know where they can find history. The right history,” he said to a chorus of knowing nods and Mmm hmmms. “They’re not teaching our kids. They’re programming our kids … let’s teach our own kids. Let’s open up our own schools.”